Re: Larkspur and hollyhocks

In a message dated 1/22/99 1:05:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, dsdavis@intop.net
writes:

<< I have someone else to hate (grin)   because you have Larkspurs without
 any problems, and her I sit with none  I don't know what I do wrong.   I
 know the weather is hot, humid, and very dry, and that's on a good day,
 but other people in this area have them.
 what is the condition of your soil?  where do you plant them?  in the
 sun, in the shade,  How do you prepare the soil where you plant?   any
 advice would be greatly appreciated. >>

Donna, I don't know what I can help with.  We did have a relatively wet spring
last year and early like the rest of the country.  I never did any watering.
These are planted on top of two of my daffodil beds, just sprinkled over about
1" of snow.  The seeds were nothing special--off the rack at the local
discount store.  LBoth beds were new.  We have very tough clay soil here and
after removing the turf I piled on aobut 6" of mushroom comppost and tilled
in.  That's all the preparation I did and no additional fertilizer except some
5-20-20 buried an inch under each daffodil bulb.  I also planted about 4 small
plants of the new Temari Red Verbena and over the course of the summer they
filled a 6 x 20 foot bed and spilled over the sides--I think the soil must
have been supremely fertile with the mushroom compost.  That's all I did.  I
may have just been lucky!

I don't have a lot of luck with hollyhocks either.  The few that do survive
get their leaves mined, then perforated, then totally devoured.  Seed also has
not worked for me.  Maybe a hollyhock expert will tell us what we need to do.

Bill Lee

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